Monday, September 10, 2012

Crystal Ball (one man’s take on the stretch run)

September Wooz: The rocky road is bound to get rockier. (David Banks/UP)

A thumbnail sketch, for those hornswaggled and hashtagged by the
Twitter world: It doesn’t end well.

I’ve had a habit of sketching out the last month of the season
whenever the White Sox are close to first, to see how it all plays out. Admittedly,
there’s a strange sense of fatalism in the exercise. (Somewhere, I still have a postcard
where I tracked the 2005 meltdown, turning a 10-game division lead throughout
into a mess of scratch-outs and, likely, fitful rips and dried teardrops.)

The 2005 Notecard of Dread, Gnashing and Doom(courtesy of the author)

With a two-game lead heading into the “biggest series of the
season,” it seems an apt time to play the rest of the year out again. I don’t
like what I see.

Detroit takes the division at 89-73, with the White Sox two back,
at 87-75.

The White Sox have a fairly easy road the rest of the way—as do
the Tigers.

Forget home and away (essentially even) or games vs. .500 teams.
The White Sox play against two clubs (seven games) who are in the heat of the
playoff race, the Tigers just one, a three-game home set vs. Oakland.

The White
Sox are 34-30 against their opponents the rest of the way (including 4-10 ver
Detroit and 5-10 vs. K.C.), while the Tigers have gone 37-29 vs. their foes
(under .500 against only Cleveland, at 5-9). So Detroit has an even easier trip into October than the White
Sox.

Plus, the White Sox rotation is out of gas and tattered. Even a
strong start by Hector Santiago—a potential Jason Bere for 2012?—was mitigated
by the fact that, as the White Sox closer breaking camp, he can’t stretch out
long to provide anything more that “long relief” starts. Jake Peavy is getting
by on grit and duct tape, Chris Sale on that scary throwing motion. Francisco Liriano and
Jose Quintana? Shambolic. Gavin Floyd, feeling “OK” after three side
sessions, is going to be counted on in key games? Sheesh. Healthy, in 2012,
he’s not been reliable in key games.

Detroit shows cracks, largely with a defense that the whole of the
Netherlands couldn’t plug. But where it really counts, the starting rotation,
the Bengals have an advantage. The Tigs boast a Big 3 (Justin
Verlander, Doug Fister, Max Scherzer) and even the back end of the rotation is more stable than
Chicago’s, with Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello.

Roughly speaking, we can call the bullpens a wash, and Detroit’s
offensive advantage cancelled out by the White Sox’s defensive one. So it very
well may come down to the rotations.

I have the two teams tied for four more days of the season, the
latest being September 26. Not more than two games will separate the teams
until September 29, when the White Sox are embroiled in a do-or-die quartet
with the stronger Tampa Rays.

I’m giving gold stars to Sale and Verlander for going undefeated
the rest of the way. Here’s how the games will break down per pitcher:

Detroit will come in and take three of four from the White Sox,
with Peavy bulldogging his way to the only win of the series. Thus Detroit
leaves town tied for first and basically never looks back. Chicago will falter
in the two long series it has left (Detroit and Tampa), winning just one of
four in both cases.

Believe me, I hope I'm wrong about these prognostications. For what it's worth, I missed on Verlander's loss in Anaheim on Saturday but got both getaway losses correct, for the White Sox and Tigers. Let's hope I'm being a little to hard on the likes of Francisco Liriano and Groovy Gavin.

At any rate, merely splitting this coming series, much less winning it, will
change the White Sox’s fortunes considerably and basically make or break the
season. If the idea that for the third time this season the White Sox will drop
out of sole possession of first after a series with the Tigers isn’t enough to
crush the club’s playoff hopes, the fact that Detroit has an easier go of it
after leaving Chicago will certainly do so.

It’s simple. Win this series, White Sox, and you win the division.
Split or lose it? Pack up the cats, it’s been fun.

About Poetry in Pros

Brett most recently logged a couple of beats at CSNChicago, first following the Blackhawks and covering their first Stanley Cup win in 49 years, then shifting to the South Side and the White Sox.

His sportswriting career began right before the turn of the century, first as an editor for Basketball News and later editing Basketball Digest and Bowling Digest. He has written for Baseball Digest and MLB Trade Rumors, as well as the Chicago White Sox and MLB World Series programs, as well as Slam, Hoop, Inside Stuff, Courtside, Rinkside, and numerous NBA game programs. He has been featured in ESPN the Magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Baltimore Sun and Crain's Chicago Business, and on Comcast Sports Net, NBA-TV, NHL.com, MLB.com, WLS-TV, WGN-TV and the BBC. He's also written features for the NBA Finals and NBA All-Star Game programs.

Brett is the author of the essential baseball reference work 'The Wit and Wisdom of Ozzie Guillen.' When Ozzie first saw the book, on Opening Night 2006, he cracked wise to those in his manager's office, asking, "What's wisdom?" To which owner Jerry Reinsdorf replied, "Don't worry, Ozzie. You don't have any."

A lifelong Chicago sports fan, the first game Brett attended was on Dec. 4, 1976, watching the Bulls snap a (still) franchise-record 13-game losing streak and setting in motion the playoff run that would come to be defined as the Miracle on Madison. At Brett's first White Sox game on June 4, 1977, Richie Zisk of the South Side Hit Men homered over the roof at Comiskey Park at a time when the feat was as rare as a no-hitter. Brett's first Chicago Bears game was on Oct. 7, 1984, when Walter Payton broke the all-time NFL career rushing mark.

More than anything, however, Brett is a baseball and a White Sox fan, having seen hundreds of games over his lifetime, including a walk-off grand slam by Carlos Lee to defeat the Cubbies, the infamous Michael Barrett sucker-punch on A.J. Pierzynski, a then-season record home run by Oscar Gamble in 1977, Bobby Thigpen's 50th season save in 1990, and the classic Blackout tiebreaker win over the Twins in 2008. There have been many pilgrimages to see the team, including a September 1990 drive up from Texas to see a final series at Comiskey Park, an April 1991 flight to watch the otherwise-unmentionable first game at the then-New Comiskey Park, outrunning a snowstorm to see the White Sox be whitewashed in a late September game at Kauffman Stadium, and a jaunt down to the Hovering Sombrero in 2005 to catch the club take on the Tampa Bay Rays.

His highlight as a fan is, of course, witnessing the entire home run of 2005 White Sox playoff victories, including the two extraordinary wins over the Houston Astros at USCF that spurred a World Series sweep. More recently, he took in Mark Buehrle's perfect game in 2009, during which Brett made the boldest prediction imaginable—not of an eventual perfect game, but a Josh Fields grand slam! Brett has watched games in every major league city.

Brett graduated from Texas Christian University with a Journalism and English degree and came thisclose to finishing his English master's at Kansas State University while teaching composition to disinterested agribusiness majors. He's won a number of writing awards in areas as varied as poetry, fiction, features, news reporting and opinion writing. Brett lives in Florida with his incomparable wife, Angelique.

Poetry in Pros Trivia

Now that you know a little bit about Poetry in Pros writer Brett Ballantini, see how you score below. True or false, Brett:

Believes that the ABA saved professional basketball.

Borrowed the title of the first draft of his master's thesis from a Camper Van Beethoven song.

Co-founded and played in a band called Ethnocentric Republicans, who once shared a bill with 15-minutes-of-fame grunge rockers The Toadies.

Considers nachos piled high with jalapenos as his go-to concession food.

Gave a Crunch bar to then-Nestle spokesman Shaquille O'Neal before their first interview together in Milwaukee. Later saw an empty Crunch bar wrapper in Shaq's locker.

Gave three photographs from his personal collection to the Chicago Bulls for their "walk of fame" leading to the locker room at the United Center.

Had four front teeth.

Has appeared in one movie, in which he was murdered when Albert Einstein slammed his head in a door.

Has appeared on the cover of a magazine with a circulation of 100,000. As Santa Claus. Bowling.

Has attended just three games in Wrigley Field as a fan. One was to see the Chicago Sting.

Has been a vegetarian for 30 years.

Has been doused by Bill Veeck's outfield shower in two different decades, in two different White Sox parks.

Hasn't cried over a game since Tito Landrum crushed that homer off of Britt Burns in October 1983.

Has worked for at least seven publications that are no longer in business.

Kissed the Minnie Minoso statue in the outfield concourse at Sox Park on the cheek as a good-luck gesture before Game 1 of the 2005 World Series.

Caught a foul ball while covering a preseason game from the roof of Tempe Diablo Stadium. On his birthday.

To Wit:

"When I build a fire under a person, I do not do it merely because of the enjoyment I get out of seeing him fry, but because he is worth the trouble. It is then a compliment, a distinction; let him give thanks and keep quiet. I do not fry the small, the commonplace, the unworthy."